A state senator and former NYPD cop has secured a controversial $10,000 grant for a research center run by ex-convicts who will study whether proposed state laws are racist.

The award was financed as a “member item” request of Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn), a former police captain who was a founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.

It will be used by the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, which is a part of CUNY’s Medgar Evers College. It’s the first academic research center in the US developed and run by ex-convicts-turned-scholars seeking to influence to public policy, according to the school’s Web site.

“A racial-impact study is a new concept. We’re going to be looking at legislation that has the potential to have negative impact on racial minorities,” said Divine Pryor, deputy executive director of the group.

He believes it will be the first such racial-impact analysis of legislation in the nation.

Pryor, 48, was released in 1992 after serving 10 years for robbery and burglary. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice from SUNY New Paltz and a doctorate from Suffield University, an online school.

Pryor told The Post that he’d use the $10,000 provided by the Senate to design the methodology for the analysis, then raise hundreds of thousands to perform it. It’s not clear whether he’d seek public, private or foundation money.

He said the study, among other things, would look at how legislation covering education, housing, employment, labor and criminal justice impacts minorities.

Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) blasted the study as a “waste of taxpayer dollars” that attempts to divide the state by race and ethnicity.

“This is the United States of America. Whatever happened to ‘This is one New York’? This is going in a bad direction,” said Golden, who is also an ex-cop.

Adams defended the study, insisting the goal is to find out what’s happening “on the ground” — not to divide the state.

“We’ve got to know what we’re doing in Albany,” he said. “If we know beforehand what the impact is, we might better find a way to solve a problem.”

Adams said he first heard about Pryor’s work in the criminal-justice field from Brooklyn DA Joe Hynes.

Pryor has been critical of policies that make it difficult for convicts who have served their time to get jobs and find housing.